On Suicide and the Monopoly of Suffering - A Reading from Emil Cioran
What drives people to suicide? What is the experience of someone considering suicide? There is an epidemic of suicide in the United States right now, especially among young men, so any understanding one can glean about suicide is important to discuss, especially if it might help prevent a suicide.
“Why shouldn’t I kill myself right now?” It may be difficult to imagine answering that question if posed by someone you love, but what answer could you give to convince someone not to kill themselves? You might immediately think of the common refrains that people use—you have so much to live for, your family loves and cares about you, you have such a long future ahead of you! All of these might even be true, but what if they aren’t? What if the person considering suicide doesn’t take these positive assertions seriously, or simply doesn’t find them to be persuasive enough to stay?
Instead of going into the modern psychological literature or statistics on suicide (which I encourage you to review here), I would like to explore an attempt at a philosophical answer from a 20th-century thinker who suffered with depression and insomnia throughout his life, and survived a difficult childhood. The pessimistic poet-philosopher Emil Cioran (1911-1995) was born in Romania and later in his life emigrated to France at age 26 at the start of World World II. He lived in Paris for the remainder of his life, where he would write several prize-winning books about the human condition, history, and more.
Cioran’s work doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable or pessimistic topics. His most famous books contain titles such as The Trouble with Being Born and A Short History of Decay, of which the former should signal his revulsion to the high esteem and privilege the idea of existence is given. Despite writing about such dismal topics, Cioran’s goal in writing such books isn’t to make his reader depressed or to convince the reader it is better not to exist. Instead, he plays a convincing devil’s advocate, arguing fervently in non-existence’s defense. Cioran is also a realist, and doesn’t care for abstract philosophical arguments. He wants to get down to the experience of existing and the desire to cease to exist. His books, written in aphorisms, are also not a streamlined treatise or essay. Instead the short aphorisms are loosely connected and often contradictory to each other, leaving the reader with the task of interpretation.
To come back to our initial topic, the conversation of suicide, Cioran gives the following advice in The Trouble with Being Born, published in 1973:
“It's not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.”
- The Trouble with Being Born, Emil Cioran
This cavalier statement seems callous in a country where there is an epidemic of suicide. Yet it may be a more persuasive answer to the question “Why shouldn’t I commit suicide?” for some. What did Cioran mean in this quote? To understand why Cioran thinks “you always kill yourself too late,” we have to go to a much earlier work of his, On the Heights of Suffering, published in 1934. In this work, Cioran outlines the nature of suffering and the “monopoly of suffering.” Each of us understands that others suffer, but the person in despair from their suffering thinks “I alone suffer, I alone have the right to suffer,” and lives “suspended above the abyss” of his suffering. For the suicidal person, “life in them is so unbalanced that no rational argument could set it right.” Years before modern psychology could take stock of the nature of suicidal ideation, Cioran was able to outline the feeling so clearly.
Cioran sees the internal conflict as central to the sufferer and understands that there is something internal, not just external circumstances, that drive someone to want to die by suicide. The life of a person considering suicide “must be such inner agony that all self-imposed barriers break and nothing is left but catastrophic dizziness, a strange and powerful whirlwind.” Different people will respond differently to their external circumstances. When disaster strikes, some will respond by rising up to the challenge, others will wallow in despair, and yet others will be shocked into inaction.
There are many reasons that someone dies by suicide, but Cioran does not like the idea of passing value judgements on certain kinds of suicides and distinguishing between “noble” or “vulgar” suicides. Cioran recognizes the humanity of someone who is considering suicide, and believes they must be “capable of great passions and great spiritual transfigurations.” This is a note that we should all take from Cioran, and understand that anyone who is capable of an act, even potentially, is experiencing something fundamental. We shouldn’t go too far in being awestruck, though, as suicide is not to be admired and is not “an affirmation of life,” a clichéd phrase used to romanticize or justify suicide.
If asked to give his thoughts on Romeo and Juliet, one of the most famous double-suicides in all of Western literature, Cioran would likely have understood the impulse to suicide by Romeo and Juliet. When speaking more generally, Cioran notes that “I despise those who scoff at suicides committed for love,” because a lover whose love is unfulfilled experiences “the cancellation of his being.”
Where does that leave us with our original inquiry into suicide? Why did Cioran say that “you always kill yourself too late?” First, when you are considering killing yourself, all of the pain and trauma have already come to pass. Killing yourself now won’t stop the things that have happened, but will only eliminate all chance of you ever experiencing anything that might redeem you from your monopoly of suffering. Death will greet us all in the end, so why are you in such a rush? Is there some reason that you have to meet death now? Death and suicide will always be available to you later. Wait and see what life has to offer and appreciate that you have such a capacity for experiencing “catastrophic dizziness.” Yell out, scream against the void, and postpone your suicide. For Cioran, “A book is a postponed suicide.” Don’t worry about finding an ultimate purpose or some perfect answer as to why you shouldn’t kill yourself. Accept you are going to die sooner or later anyways, that suicide is an option you can always take later, and find something that will help you postpone your suicide.
Works Cited
Cioran, Emil. 1996. On the Heights of Despair. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
—. 1973. The Trouble with Being Born. Translated by Richard Howard. New York City: Arcade Publishing.
